PREREQUISITE EXPECTATIONS

--Mathematics background equivalent to requirements for Georgia certification in secondary mathematics (grades 7-12).

--Previous preparation and certification to teach secondary level mathematics.  Exceptions would be appropriate for beginning doctoral students without previous background in education  or  foreign students who are not working for certification.

SOME HISTORY and BACKGROUND 

The University Bulletin title of   EMAT 7050 is "Teaching Secondary School Mathematics."    The older description of  course was "Instructional procedures and evaluation to in terms of student growth."   Both the title and the description are derived from the earliest days this course was offered at the University, beginning around 1968 as EMT 705, a required "mathematics instruction" course in the Master of Education degree. The only prerequiste was "permission of the department."   The course was intended for persons already certified to teach mathematics at the secondary level (grades 7-12).     In practice several things allowed "permission of the department" to impact on the nature of the course.

Some students were admitted into the course without previous certification background.   These included foreign students,  doctoral students who did not have an education background, and students who wished to pursue initial certification at the graduate level.  Much later, the description of secondary level was changed to Grades 6-12. 

A growing number of "change of career" graduate students led to the use of the Master of Education degree for initial certification in the 1990s and beyond.    For many of these students, the EMAT 7050 course (or the earlier EMT 705) was the only "methods" course in their program.  Some students opted to take an undergraduate methods course as well but those enrollments did not count in the MEd program of students and increasing costs of tuition made that impractical for many.  As the numbers of career change students increased, the faculty struggled for dealing with the needs for a methods course whereas already certified students needed a course allowing more depth of study for scholarship and issues in mathematics education.

Subsequently, and slowly, a Master of Arts in Teaching for mathematics education students was developed, specifically aimed at those graduate students working for initial certification in secondary mathematics.    Thus the purposes of the EMAT 6360 and the EMAT 7050 developed different directions.    The MAT degree program has been in place since 2010.